That free antivirus from my ISP flagged my own damn payroll script

I was running a quick Python script to generate pay stubs for my small business last Tuesday and suddenly Norton blocked it as a trojan. Has anyone else had their antivirus freak out over totally legitimate code you wrote yourself?

3 comments

3 Comments

linda_clark26d ago

Yeah Norton flagged my own backup script as a trojan once. I just added the folder where I keep my personal scripts to the exclusion list in Norton's settings. Took maybe 2 minutes and it never bothered me again. You probably need to do the same for wherever you save your Python files. Just make sure you're actually the one who wrote that script and not some random download.

nora53526d ago

Right? That total panic when your own code gets flagged is the worst. I had McAfee once throw a fit over a simple .bat file I wrote to organize my desktop folders, and I spent a whole afternoon thinking I somehow downloaded a real virus. It is so frustrating when the antivirus has no idea what a legitimate developer script looks like and just screams "danger" at everything. You write it yourself, you know it's safe, but that red popup still makes your heart stop for a second.

reed.eva26d ago

Hang on though... putting your whole scripts folder on the exclusion list is exactly how you let a real trojan sneak in. I've seen guys do that with their work laptops and then wonder why they got ransomware. You gotta be real careful with exclusions. Instead of whitelisting the whole folder, just bypass Norton once for that specific .py file and let it scan everything else. That way you're not opening a backdoor for something nasty to hide in.